BACKGROUND: Preterm labour is a major cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality, so it is important to predict preterm delivery using the clinical examination of the cervix and uterine contraction frequency. New markers for the prediction of preterm birth have been developed such as transvaginal ultrasound measurement of cervical length as this method is widely available. OBJECTIVE: To determine, whether transvaginal cervical length measurement predicts imminent preterm delivery better than digital cervical length measurement in women presented with preterm labour and intact membranes. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two hundred women presented with preterm labour between 24 and 36+6 weeks of gestation were included in this study. All women subjecte
... Show MoreSewer systems are used to convey sewage and/or storm water to sewage treatment plants for disposal by a network of buried sewer pipes, gutters, manholes and pits. Unfortunately, the sewer pipe deteriorates with time leading to the collapsing of the pipe with traffic disruption or clogging of the pipe causing flooding and environmental pollution. Thus, the management and maintenance of the buried pipes are important tasks that require information about the changes of the current and future sewer pipes conditions. In this research, the study was carried on in Baghdad, Iraq and two deteriorations model's multinomial logistic regression and neural network deterioration model NNDM are used to predict sewers future conditions. The results of the
... Show MoreDiabetes mellitus, with adverse neonatal events are challenging issues to all obstetricians and pediatricians, where uric acid could play a vital role. We aimed to assess the relationship and prognostic benefits of serum uric acid measured at about 20 weeks’ gestation in normotensive pregnancy, with subsequent maternal diabetes, and neonatal complications. All singleton normotensive pregnant women with normal blood glucose, serum creatinine, and weight before pregnancy, whom attended Medical City Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Baghdad, were involved and regarded as the case group, on the condition that their serum uric acid measured at 20 weeks’ gestation > 3 mg/dl, but if ≤ 3 mg/dl, they would be regi
... Show MoreSodium adsorption ratio (SAR) is considered as a measure of the water suitability for irrigation usage. This study examines the effect of the physicochemical parameters on water quality and SAR, which included Calcium(Ca+2), Magnesium(Mg+2), Sodium (Na+), Potassium (K), Chloride (Cl-), Sulfate(SO4-2), Carbonate (CO3-2), Bicarbonate (HCO3-), Nitrate (NO3-), Total Hardness (TH), Total Dissolved Salts (TDS), Electrical Conductivity (EC), degree of reaction (DR), Boron (B) and the monthly and annually flow discharge (Q). The water samples were collected from three stations across the Tigris River in Iraq, which flows through Samarra city (upstream), Baghdad city (central) and the end of Kut city (downstream) for the periods of 2016-201
... Show MoreCost is the essence of any production process for it is one of the requirements for the continuity of activities so as to increase the profitability of the economic unit and to support the competitive situation in the market. Therefore, there should be an overall control to reduce the cost without compromising the product quality; to achieve this, the management should have detailed credible and reliable information about the cost to be measured, collected, understood and to analyze the causes for the spread of deviations and obstacles the management faces, and to search for the factors that trigger the emergence of these deviations and obstacles
Nanotechnology is a continually expanding field for its uses and applications in multiple areas i.e. medicine, science, and engineering. Biosynthesis is straightforward, less-toxicity, and cost-effective technology. TiO2 NPs biosynthesis has attained consideration in recent decades. In this study, probiotic bacteria were isolated from cow’s raw milk samples, and then were identified by using the Vitek2 system; as Leuconostoc spp. included Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides (Leu.1), Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris (Leu.4), and Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides (Leu.14). All Leuconostoc spp. isolates showed an ability for TiO2 NPs bio-production, after being incubated at anaerobic conditions (30 o C/ 24 h) in DeM
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The aim of this work is to create a power control system for wind turbines based on fuzzy logic. Three power control loop was considered including: changing the pitch angle of the blade, changing the length of the blade and turning the nacelle. The stochastic law was given for changes and instant inaccurate assessment of wind conditions changes. Two different algorithms were used for fuzzy inference in the control loop, the Mamdani and Larsen algorithms. These two different algorithms are materialized and developed in this study in Matlab-Fuzzy logic toolbox which has been practically implemented using necessary intelligent control system in electrical engineerin
... Show MoreA high settlement may take place in shallow footing when resting on liquefiable soil if subjected to earthquake loading. In this study, a series of shaking table tests were carried out for shallow footing resting on sand soil. The input motion is three earthquake loadings (0.05g, 0.1g, and 0.2g). The study includes a reviewing of theoretical equations (available in literatures), which estimating settlement of footings due to earthquake loading, calibration, and verification of these equations with data from the shaking table test for improved soil by grouting and unimproved soil. It is worthy to note that the grouting materials considered in this study are the Bentonite and CKD slurries. A modification to the seismic set
... Show MoreThis paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study aimed to compare the influence of openings of different configurations on the flexural behavior of prestressed concrete rafters. The experimental program consisted of testing six simply supported prestressed concrete rafters; 5 rafters are perforated, and the other one is solid as a reference. All rafters were tested under monotonic midpoint load. The variable which has been investigated in this work was the opening’s configuration (quadrilateral or circular) with the same upper and lower chords depths. The results indicate improvement in the beam flexural behavior using the circular openings compared to the quadrilateral o
Lower limb Rehabilitation Robots (LLRRs) assist in therapeutic tasks that involve gait recovery and joint mobility recovery of the lower limbs, in patients recovering from neurologic injuries such as stroke as well as spinal cord injury. LLRRs can sometimes be driven by preprogrammed trajectories or Inverse Kinematics (IK) trajectories, which bring increased computational demand and command supported interaction. This paper proposes an interactive control framework for LLRRs using a hybrid mix of Forward Kinematics (FK) driven movement and an offline Voice Conversational Agent (VCA), based on the Vosk speech recognition engine. The framework proposed is modular in nature that is completely “local”, running offline with no need for the I
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